THE SKUNK. 43 



the use of their defensive and offensive glands is not 

 brought into play as is the case when they are brought 

 to bay or seized by a dog or man. Skunks, however, 

 had this power before they were exposed to the attacks 

 of men and dogs, and, if not used as a means of offense 

 when among mammals smaller than themselves, it was 

 acquired as the necessary safeguard against their dog-like 

 enemies, the wolves and foxes. 



When their involuntary river- voyages are undertaken, 

 it often happens that a short swim becomes necessary. 

 This is always so clumsily done that, if a skunk has more 

 than a few yards to go, it will probably be drowned. 

 They are not equally averse, I find, to traveling on ice ; 

 and the last living skunk I saw was walking on the ice 

 from a small wooded island in Watson's Creek to the 

 main shore. While inactive and prone to long naps in 

 extreme winter weather, the skunk can hardly be consid- 

 ered as hibernating. 



Skunks are very partial to snakes as an article of food, 

 though insects, with frogs and birds' eggs, seem to be their 

 main support. Were they under all circumstances odor- 

 less and quite harmless, their eager search for these latter 

 articles is sufficient to condemn them. It is bad enough 

 that the demands of science should seem to require the 

 collection in a systematic manner of an occasional nest 

 and complement of eggs. This can not be avoided ; but 

 to aggravate the evil by having a skunk destroy most of 

 the ground-nests in the neighborhood is beyond all en- 

 durance. Better, surely, a nest of thrushes or song-spar- 

 rows than a litter of skunks. An animal that destroys 

 birds' nests is always a nuisance, though I do not object 

 to any other, however wicked. But to return to the 

 snakes. When pressed by hunger, and hunting by day- 

 light, the skunk prefers to go after snakes rather than 



